Sources Say • Burkholder to make ripples, not waves

Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder is through with elected politics, at least for now. Burkholder, who lost the race for Metro president last year, will be term-limited out of his District 5 at the end of 2012. Although he could run for any number of offices next year, Burkholder tells Sources he is more interested in trying to influence public policy from behind the scenes, possibly at one of Portland State University's urban policy-related centers.

'I'd like to be a stone in the water that causes ripples,' says Burkholder, who finished the 2010 Metro President race owing more than $100,000, according to the most recent campaign filings.

City Confidential update

The controversial 31-year-old killing of a Portland police officer has come back to haunt Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire. On April 13, Gregoire signed a bill prohibiting police from profiling motorcycle riders at a ceremony that included numerous leather-clad bikers. As reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting, one of them was Robert 'Pigpen' Christopher, a member of the Outsiders who shot and killed Officer David Crowther during a 1979 police raid on the club's North Portland headquarters. Christopher served 14 months in prison for manslaughter, but was released after evidence surfaced of police corruption.

Retired Portland police Captain C.W. Jensen told OPB it was a mistake for Gregoire to include Christopher in the signing ceremony. But the Washington State Confederation of (Motorcycle) Clubs defended Christopher in a press release

'Robert Christopher was vindicated and is now a free and voting citizen and had as much business as anybody in the governor's office,' wrote confederation spokesman David Devereaux.

Smokin' in The Pearl

The first medical marijuana clinic on the city's west side opened two weeks ago, in the Pearl District, of all places.

The half-dozen or so medical marijuana clinics in Portland have until now been concentrated on the city's east side. The new Pearl District clinic is owned and operated by Dr. Sandra Camacho-Otero, who had been employed at Oregon's largest medical marijuana clinic, The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation in Southeast Portland.

There, as detailed in a Tribune story last year, Camacho-Otero saw between 35 and 40 patients a day, deciding if they met Oregon standards to receive medical marijuana cards for pain relief.

In one year, Camacho-Otero wrote 8,760 medical marijuana authorizations. The next most prolific physician in the state wrote 2,634.